The Calm After The Storm
by erttheking
Summary: The Third Tiberium War is over, and GDI is picking up the pieces of what's left. However, while they have a moment of peace, they know it's doomed to not last. There's one last hurrah ahead of them. Patreon sponsored story.


Yie Sujin tightened her grip on the military grade binoculars she had pressed to her eyes. Threshold 19 was in the distance, positioned right in the center of Italy, right on top of where the original Tiberium meteorite had impacted on Earth. With Italy being not just a run of the mill Red Zone, but the place on Earth where Tiberium concentration was the thickest, GDI had only sent in the occasional scouting force before the Third Tiberium War, plus the occasional research team to take Tiberium samples.

Now though? The area around Threshold 19 had been turned into a GDI fortress. Reclamation teams had been working around the clock for months under the protection of ZOCOM to carve out a patch of land that was enough to set up basses, barracks, and support facilities for an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands. They were all set up in a ring around Threshold 19, a wall of sonic emitters keeping the wave of green slowly turning blue on both sides at bay, a tiny island in an ocean of Tiberium.

There was, however, a distance of 10 kilometers between the forward most GDI position and Threshold 19. Mammoth tanks, Juggernauts, pillboxes, rocket troopers, snipers a team of highly experienced commandos (that sadly came with mavericks like the recently unretired Nick "Havoc" Parker that acted as trainers to the younger commandos and were a headache to work with) slingshots, static AT and AA guns, and even a MARV all had their weapons trained on Threshold 19, but not a single one was allowed within 10km of the building without express authorization. Obviously, this was because of the dangerous levels of Tiberium on the far side, but there was a reason the wall of sonic emitters had been built that far out in the first place.

"Fire," Sujin ordered calmly.

"Ion cannon firing," a cool, synthetic voice reported in her earpiece. At once, a blue arc of energy thundered down from the sky, impacting on the very top of Threshold 19 and exploding in a dazzling display of light. Slowly, the smoke from the explosion cleared away. The ion cannon strike had not so much as scratched Threshold 19.

"Again," Sujin said, focusing her binoculars on the spot that had been hit. "Concentrate the ion cannon on the exact same spot. Repeat until I say otherwise." She received another confirmation from the synthetic voice. Over and over again, the skyline was illuminated by the ion cannon striking down on the superstructure of Threshold 19. Every time the smoked cleared away to reveal that it was undamaged, not even a scratch.

"Ma'am, ion cannon #19 is approaching its heat threshold, it will only be able to fire two more shots safely," the synthetic voice said. "Would you like to requisition another ion cannon to take its place? Ion cannon #41 can be in position to fire within three hours."

Sujin let out a sigh of frustration that she had been holding in. "Negative. Have ion cannon return to its normal holding pattern, we're done here." She lowered her binoculars, glaring at the Scrin built tower in the distance. If Kane ever came out of there, she had an army at the ready to take him and anything that they could throw at her, in addition to air support that could reach her position in a matter of minutes. But so long as Kane was content to stay sequestered away in his new de facto Temple Prime, there was nothing she could do but have her men keep watch and make sure he stayed put. The stronghold was utterly impenetrable, to the point where she doubted that even a liquid Tiberium bomb could crack it. Not that she was in a hurry to find out, she wasn't Boyle.

Reaching towards her ear, she changed her frequency to a general channel and spoke. "All forces, stand down from bombardment status and resume regular protocols. I repeat. Stand down from bombardment status and resume regular operations." Biting back another sigh, she turned and left the observation deck in the main HQ of what GDI was slowly starting to call the "Iron Ring." "General Yie?" an assistant said, coming up to her the second that she had left. "General Granger is here for his 3 o'clock with you a little early. Should I let him into your office?"

"Yes, please do, tell him I'll be down in a minute." The assistant nodded before running away. Sujin began to walk down the cold, metallic bases of the Iron Ring's HQ, not heading towards her office but heading in the general direction, scanning the hallways for the right person. She encountered a few pockets of soldiers who snapped to attention as she passed, but no one she was looking for. Then, she spotted her. "Lieutenant Ito? General Granger is here earlier than expected."

The ZOCOM lieutenant, who had been handing a pile of papers to a fellow officer in a hallway, snapped to attention at once. "Yes, ma'am. I've handed in my report from the last patrol, I'm all yours." The invasion of the Scrin had completely flipped the geopolitical landscape, not only did they have to worry about Nod, they also had extraterrestrials to worry about, ones that they barely understood. GDI engineers and scientists were examining every bit of Scrin technology they could get their hands on, but knowledge of Scrin tactics, mindsets, and mechanics of thinking were on the short side. As such, she had to make do with de facto experts on the subject of the Scrin mind until proper experts had time to emerge.

InOps was heavily collaborating with ZOCOM, the branch of GDI military that had engaged the Scrin the most. Ikumi Ito had been with the very first GDI unit to engage Scrin forces, and since then she had been heavily involved in many research ventures to understand the Scrin thought process, often at her own urging. And Sujin needed her.

"Any breakthroughs as of late?" Sujin asked as she began to head directly towards her office, Lieutenant Ito right behind her.

"A minor one, but nothing else," Ito replied. "InOps is working on decoding Scrin communications, which would be tasking by itself if it didn't come with the double whammy of also needing to translate. Progress is slow, but there's a working theory, and I need to emphasize this is only a theory at this point, that the Scrin who gave the order to withdraw did so against orders."

"Hm. Interesting," Sujin said. "That would imply that there's some degree of individuality among the Scrin, at least for the high ranking officers. Now if only we could figure out what parts of the Scrin war machine are members of their species or war machines that they built. It'll be vital to our planning if we can figure out if any of their rank and file can make decisions like that, or if they can only react after being given orders."

"Hard to say, ma'am, a lot of what makes the Scrin the Scrin is heavily outside of our frame of reference, we've never encountered anything like it," Ito said. A moment passed before Ito spoke up again. "What exactly did General Granger say he wanted to talk about in this meeting? I don't remember you telling me."

"That's because I didn't have anything to tell," Sujin said simply, "he didn't tell me either. He scheduled this out of nowhere, asked me to bring you, and said that he couldn't talk about any of it over the radio, that it had to be in person." The implication of that statement hung heavily in the air.

"Boyle isn't going to be exonerated, is he?" Ito asked. The thought made Sujin's blood boil. Boyle had retired in an attempt to avoid being tried for war crimes, but there were plenty of influential individuals within GDI that were trying their best to make it happen. Lawyers with the legal know-how, rich individuals that were willing to pay for the lawyers to work on this full time, civilian organizations who were organizing petitions, protests, and public funds, and plenty of everyday citizens who were more than willing to support them. It was unclear at the moment, though, if there was a case to be made or not, and Sujin was fairly certain she would be unable to resist the urge to punch someone if Boyle got off scot-free.

"I doubt so, he would've been bragging for the whole world to see," Sujin replied, hoping that it was true. They made a turn and then stopped in front of the door that was directly there, "Lt. General Yie" stenciled on the front. "Come on in Lieutenant," Sujin said, opening the door for her. She nodded in gratitude and entered, Sujin right behind her.

"Good to see you again general, lieutenant." General Granger was sitting on the far side of Sujin's desk, his permanent frown etched across his face and four stars shining on his uniform. As a side effect of GDI's upper military echelons being wiped out in the opening salvos of the Third Tiberium War was that Granger, as the highest ranking survivor, was a shoo-in for a fast track up the ranks at an unheard of pace. A lot of that had been going around, Sujin owed it for her own new generalship, but there hadn't been "I was a fan of the firework display that you put on, shame that it didn't get us anywhere. I imagine Kane's having a nice long laugh at our expense."

"He never struck me as a laugher, more of a smug smiler," Sujin said, taking a seat at her desk while Ito sat to the side, silently watching. Knowing Ito, she would sit there without saying a single word if neither of the generals and made a mental note to ensure that that didn't happen. "How's the cleanup campaign going?"

"We're still getting pockets of Nod fighting throughout the entire world, though there's barely any coordination between them now that Kane has set up his holiday home and left them all out to dry," Granger said. "We reliably get a thousand or two who surrender every day, and we've found evidence that more than a few suicide pacts were formed, but there are still large portions who are still fighting, maybe a million put all together."

He leaned back in his chair, looking at Sujin. "They've all been pushed out of the Blue Zones and are making their stands in the Yellow Zones, trying to drum up local support from the people. Problem is, support for Nod in the Yellow Zones is at an all-time low. Aliens are real, Kane is gone, and GDI is still fighting strong. No one wants to throw in their lot with Nod, particularly after what happened at Temple Prime." Sujin felt a pang of disgust as she thought about the current state of the Mediterranean. They were still putting together how bad the damage was, but the death toll had long since surpassed the millions and was well on its way to the tens of millions. "And no one wants to fight for a leader that abandoned them."

"I hear there's still a Black Hand stronghold in Sudan, that they fled there after the Egyptian campaign and holed up," Sejin said. The Black Hand had always been the boogeyman of GDI's armed forces. If there were reports of nightmares among soldiers, PTSD induced or otherwise, the Black Hand tended to have the starring role. After all, it was a shocking contrast, one that every new GDI rifleman learned depressingly fast. New recruits had a tendency to get into a skirmish with poorly trained and poorly equipped militias and then started to think that Nod was all bluster. Then they met the highly disciplined Black Hand. The Black Hand didn't use surplus AKs, they used state of the art lasers and Tiberium infused flamethrowers. And they didn't use paper thin armor, they used power armor that rivaled Zone Troopers in effectiveness. Terror came down like a tidal wave when direct shots to the Black Hand didn't score easy kills, and the realization that there was a reason Nod was considered a major threat sunk in. They would do well to not let the Black Hand roam freely.

"There is," Granger replied. "Most of the Nod holdouts are small, scattered, and desperate. 70% of them are the militias that made up the low ranking cannon fodder of the Brotherhood, most of the more elite forces went with Kane into Threshold 19. But the dregs of Black Hand that didn't are making their stand near Khartoum. They're being pounded from all sides and by the way that they're acting, they have no intention of surrendering. We're expecting them to fight to the last man. Not surprisingly, the Black Hand was always made of tougher and more fanatical stuff than the average Nod militia, and they're bleeding us a lot more than the other Nod pockets. Still, there's no way they're walking out of this alive, it's just a question of how few men can we lose before they finally crack."

"So, Kane left all but the cream of his crop behind," Sujin said, frowning. "What is he playing at? I don't see him being able to come back after this one, not now that we know where he's hiding and have him surrounded. His bag of tricks must be empty by this point."

"Sadly, we think he may have one more. That's what I came here to talk to you about," Granger said. Somehow, he looked even more grumpy than usual. "See, one of the holdouts surrendered yesterday, the majority of the soldiers are being transferred to a holding facility until they can be properly tried. We don't know if any of them committed war crimes or not, we need to check before we decide how we go forward. But the officers were taken in for questioning by InOps, and one of them was a low ranking general. What he hinted at wasn't pretty, and I'm not the type to beat around the bush so I'm just going to come out and say it. There's evidence that Kane has built a replacement for CABAL. They call it LEGION. InOps followed up the interview by tearing through Nod's communication logs and reports. No one says it outright, but InOps knows how to paint a picture with only a few parts, and a lot of the orders being given don't look like they came from humans. So it's active."

For a moment Sujin's voice died. The implication rang in her head. Another CABAL. Then she found her voice again. "Is he out of his fucking mind?" she asked. She had half intended for it to come out a yell, but instead, she sounded almost raspy. "General, I was there during the Firestorm Crisis. I was a corporal when we made the assault on CABAL's compound. It took us ten hours to bring down that giant robot that he had defending him, and it did not go down without a fight. Nod was there too, getting pounded into paste alongside us. Why the everloving Hell would Kane go and build another one? For everything about Kane, I thought his one redeeming trait was that he wasn't an idiot?"

"Kane is very capable of learning from mistakes," Granger said dryly. "Sadly though, he seems to mainly learn from other people's mistakes, not so much his own. This is the third time he's going to war with us after all. His tactics improve, his strategies improve, his technology and recruits improve, but Kane himself keeps making the same mistakes. Now, on top of everything else, we need to start looking for covert Nod bunkers. We need to know if there's another underground cyborg army back there."

Sujin didn't say anything for a moment. Memories were flashing back in front of her eyes. CABAL's Core Defender. Bombs raining down from on high, the old legged Mammoth Mark IIs firing until their barrels glowed bright red, all of it like blanks against the goliath that tore through them with ease. That had left thousands dead. "Yeah," she said blankly. She focused herself. "Precisely. I assume you're concerned that such bunkers are not far from our current position?"

Granger nodded. "I'm not sure if it's a Kane move or a LEGION move we need to be more concerned about, but both would do that. Have us focus all our forces on Threshold 19 and then hit us from the other side before catching us in a pincer move with a sortie. Something we can't afford. I want you to spare what ZOCOM forces you can to start scouting every last nook and cranny within 100 kicks of this base."

Sujin turned to face Ito. "Will you be up for it?"

Sujin thought that the Japanese lieutenant looked a little green in the face, but she kept it under control. Giving a stiff nod, she replied, "of course. If there's even a single Nod cyborg out there, we'll find it."

"We'll also have to worry about upgrading our cybersecurity, the worst thing about LEGION is that he's most likely more advanced than CABAL, with the decades that Kane has had to improve on the design," Granger said. "And that's without taking into account how Kane can now play with alien technology. A combination that, god willing, will never become anything more than a paranoid thought in the back of my mind. But until then, I'll be having a thousand or so technicians coming in to go through everything in this ring that's wireless. It's happening all over GDI, though without us mentioning the A.I. part. A silver lining to the recent alien invasion is that no one is questioning the push for a hardware upgrade."

"I hope we have enough talent for that," Sujin said darkly. "After three wars, I'm worried the human race may start to run into a problem of not having enough skilled and educated workers."

Granger nodded grimly. "A valid concern. We are suffering a minor shortage of software engineers in GDI, we're making a push for fresh recruits with the required skills, as well as including it in our training. Because there's some good news to all of this. Three days ago I was at the panel where our annual budget was being discussed. Effectively, we've been given a blank check. All demilitarization that was planned is being canceled, and new research projects are being formed. The Mammoth Mark IV may see a return to form of the old walkers."

Sujin could think of quite a few old tankers that would start skipping with joy the second they learned that. Though she was personally torn. She had fond memories of riding on the backs of the Mark IIs during her trooper days, but she had grown to depend on the reliability of the Mark IIIs. She would have to wait and see what GDI's engineers came up with, they had yet to make a bad version of the Mammoth. "So we can expect an overall expansion of GDI's armed forces?"

"We're looking at the single biggest increase in personnel under our command since the First Tiberium War," Granger said. "An alien invasion will do that, it adds a whole other dimension to the situation. Speaking of which, the Scrin." He glanced at Lieutenant Ito. "Lieutenant, Have there been any recent breakthroughs regarding the Scrin?"

"Minor ones, sir," she said crisply. "We've started to lay the foundation of Scrin language from their low-security transmissions, ones that they didn't consider worth hiding from us. They were mainly trivial communications about the exact temperature and minor delays of a few minutes, but we're starting to get a grip on their lexicon. Only basic material though, we've still a long way to go. I have a detailed report ready for you, including the theories that we are still working on."

Granger nodded. "I'll read it the second this meeting is done. But one important question above all Lieutenant. Are we looking at another Scrin invasion?"

Slowly, Ito nodded. "Sir, our limited encounter with the Scrin suggests that they utilize Tiberium in their life even more than we do. They intended to harvest this planet for their own ends. They're not going to give up after just one encounter with us, not when we're not even capable of interplanetary travel."

"I was afraid that you'd say that," Grander said. "Because InOps has been looking around everything Nod has been left lying around. Kane never told anyone everything, but he spread enough around that we're getting a disturbing implication. As it stands, a Fourth Tiberium War seems pretty inevitable by this point. It'll probably be the one that decides everything."

"We're getting an increased budget, recruit wave, and technological development, Kane has his cream of the crop, pet A.I., and a new tower to play with, and the Scrin, hell, who knows what they have," Seijun said. "No one's going to be holding anything back."

"Barring a sudden and unlikely change of fate," Granger said. "As much as I like to think we've got Kane cornered here, I think we both know he's got something planned. He's not the type that would let himself get so easily surrounded like this. He's going to try and do something clever because he always tries to do something clever." He sighed. "So much that we need to do, and all we can do is prepare and dig in until our enemies decide to come to us."

"A soldier's duty is never done," Sujin said wryly. "Anything else sir?"

"We're putting together an initiative to go looking for the Forgotten," Granger said. "We need as many allies in our side of the ring as we can get, through expectations for that are low. Other than that, I wanted you to know what we're up against and what we need to be able to prepare for."

Sujin nodded. "Aye, sir. One last war. Then we finally put Nod out of our misery."

Granger cracked a rare smile.

Author's Note: The prompt for this story was the aftermath of the 3rd Tib War, and if the series wasn't in the hand of greedy monkeys, I think this is what the set up for Tiberium Twilight would look like. Setting everything up for one big, final showdown. I hope you all enjoyed it!


End file.
